Oh, dear. In that case, how was this young man going to support a wife?
“What does he do?”
Caroline hesitated, and Hassie could almost see her assessing, deciding how far she could trust her new sister-in-law. “He’s a clerk, but it’s not as if that’s all he’ll be forever. He’s saving so we’ll have a start, and then we’re going to marry, and he’ll find a better position in Kansas City or St. Louis. I used to talk to him after church, but Will saw us once, and now Mother and Mary all but hold on to me from the pew to the carriage. They’re wasting their effort because they aren’t going to stop us.”
Hassie remembered Johnny Rankin and the girls he had seduced and hurt.
“You need to be careful.”
“We know,” Caroline said, uncharacteristically serious. “If anyone sees us together again, I’m not sure what they’ll do. Send me back to Virginia probably.”
Keeping her family from stopping the romance wasn’t what Hassie thought Caroline needed to be careful about. Telling Bret would be breaking a confidence, but would not telling be worse?
After wrestling with the problem, Hassie decided telling Bret could wait until after the Durhams’ visit. Maybe Caroline didn’t really dislike Carl Durham and just wanted the excitement of a secret beau before settling down.
The Durhams arrived right before lunch the next day. By the time Mr. Sterling finished introducing them all, Hassie was firmly in Caroline’s camp. Husband and wife, two sons and a daughter, the whole family were arrogant snobs. So were all the Sterlings except Caroline, of course, but except for Will they managed to hide it behind good manners most of the time.
After the meal, Mr. Durham wanted to hear from Bret about places he’d seen in his years traveling through the western states.
“Let’s go to my study,” Mr. Sterling said. “We’ll be more comfortable there.”
“Of course,” Mr. Durham agreed. “Carl, why don’t you take Caroline for a walk? Perhaps she’d like to show you the new Thoroughbreds.”
Hassie almost laughed at the speed with which Caroline invited the sister and younger son to join the outing. She wanted Hassie to come too, but Hassie had seen the Thoroughbreds and begged off. She’d rather visit Brownie and her less prestigious companions.
“Be careful out there with the loose horses,” Bret said. “You don’t need to be j-o-s-t-l-e-d.” Hassie did laugh at Bret’s use of the hated word.
Not minding some time to herself, she gathered two apples and half a dozen cookies from the kitchen, bundled up, and set out. First, she’d give the apples to the horses. Then she and Gunner would each have a cookie, leaving the rest to fortify them on their walk.
Brownie, Packie, and Jasper shared a small pasture south of the barn. At her whistle, Jasper came at a fast trot, Packie behind, and of course Brownie brought up the rear at a slow jog.
Hassie gave half an apple to each horse and the extra half to Brownie. She petted velvety noses and necks covered with thick winter hair and didn’t leave until the horses lost interest in a human with no more treats for them.
Still struggling with the heavy wooden bar that secured the gate, Hassie glanced toward the barn at the sound of angry shouting from that direction.
“Stop him!”
“I can’t!”
A huge, dark form charged toward her. Letting the bar fall and bounce on the ground, Hassie threw herself to one side. She was almost clear when Augustus Caesar crashed through the opening, and the wild swing of the gate clipped her side, knocking her down to her knees. The stallion thundered across the pasture straight for the two peacefully grazing geldings and Brownie.
Jasper tried to run, but he had no chance. The bigger horse smashed into Jasper’s side and bowled him over. Wheeling around, still intent on savaging the helpless gelding, Caesar caught sight of Packie and Brownie fleeing along the fence line and changed targets.
Shaky and shaking, Hassie climbed to her feet. Angry men and a screaming female bore down on her. The air reverberated with the pounding of hooves on frozen ground and Gunner’s frantic barking as he gave chase. Hands seized Hassie’s upper arms and pulled her away from the gate.
“Oh, God, Hassie, I’m so sorry,” Caroline said, her voice thick with tears. “That idiot wouldn’t listen. I told him not to go near Caesar. He just had to go in the stall, and I don’t know what anyone can do now.”
The screaming had drawn the men from the house at a run, Bret hobbling close to full speed without the cane.
Caroline babbled an explanation as Bret folded Hassie against his chest for a long moment. “Did he knock you down, run over you, what?”
Once she got her hands free, she told him. “No, the gate bumped me, and I was off balance. I’m fine.” She gestured toward the pasture. “He will kill Jasper, our horses.”
“No, he won’t. You two get behind the barn and stay there.”
Hassie let Caroline pull her to the shelter of the barn wall. The men climbed on the fence, waving their arms, their shouts adding to the chaos.
“At least Carl’s stupid sister shut up,” Caroline muttered.
Bret didn’t join the others on the fence rails. The gate had bounced back to its closed position, although it wasn’t fastened. He threw it wide and whistled. On his feet again, Jasper ran in terror along the fence line with Packie. The two geldings tore down the side of the pasture toward the gaping escape route as fast as they could run. Bret slammed the gate closed behind them and rammed the bar home.
“Gunner,” he yelled, “Gunner, get over here and shut up.” Gunner kept running and barking. Bret cursed and shouted again. The dog finally gave up the chase and crawled out of the pasture, head and tail lowered apologetically.
The stallion pursued Brownie relentlessly, his teeth sunk deep in her neck. He tried to mount every time she slowed. The mare ran at her own ponderous pace, kicking, squealing. Bret whistled, whistled again. How could Brownie come with that monster all over her?
Hassie left Caroline and ran to Bret. He glared at her. Hassie pointed. Brownie had turned toward them.
“I’ll get a rope on her. You hold her,” Bret ordered. “And you stay on this side of the damned fence.”
The two horses running straight at the fence loomed like a train locomotive bearing down at full speed. Brownie crashed into the rails, still trying to fight the stallion off. Bret ran a rope through the mare’s halter and shoved it at Hassie. She grabbed and held.
The stallion squealed in frustration, trying to breed the unwilling mare as she bucked and kicked. Her big feet hit his chest with wicked thuds like a mallet on meat.
Sam Olson ran to Bret. “Here. Here’s a stud chain.”
Olson showed no inclination to try to get the chain on the stallion himself. Bret vaulted over the fence, fastened the chain on one side of Caesar’s halter, and jerked. Caesar snaked his head at Bret, mouth gaping, ears flat, but Bret’s hold was too short and too hard for the stallion to sink his teeth in an arm or shoulder.
Bret wrapped the chain over Caesar’s nose. Furious, rearing, and striking, Caesar fought futilely before submitting to the inevitable. Once Bret had him under control, Olson led the stallion away.
A chastened Carl Durham and his younger brother caught Jasper and Packie and brought them back to the pasture. Jasper had skin and hair missing on his side and signs of bruising, but no worse injuries. Brownie had scrapes and cuts all over, and the ugly bites on her neck were already swelling.
Bret pulled Hassie into his arms again. “You wouldn’t make light to make me feel better, would you? How hard did the gate hit you?”
“I am not making light. Just a bump, and I was off balance, so I went down.”
“You go inside. I’ll take care of the horses.”
Hassie shook her head. Not only did she want to see the horses doctored, calm, and settled, she wanted to stay close to Bret. Behind them, Carl Durham rationalized his own actions. Caroline angrily contradicted him, and Mr. Sterling sent her to the house.
Bret finished treating Jasper’s wounds with a blue concoction Olson brought out and dabbed the medicine on Brownie’s wounds. Hassie crooned under her breath to the mare, stroked her nose, rubbed behind her ears.
Mr. Sterling sent the younger Durhams back to the house with sympathetic pats on their shoulders. The arrogant idiot who had caused all the trouble might get sympathy, but Brownie didn’t and neither did Bret.
Mr. Sterling approached them so angrily Brownie sidled away nervously. Gunner, stiff and growling, stopped the man in his tracks.
“I won’t have a scrub like that in foal to Caesar,” Mr. Sterling said, his voice tight with anger. “Do you understand me? You get rid of that sorry piece of crowbait before it comes into season and lures Caesar again, and while you’re at it, you get rid of this damned dog.”
Bret’s face turned to an impassive mask. “The only crowbait on this place I’ll get rid of is your foul-tempered stallion. If Hassie had still been in the pasture, he could have killed her. Hell, he almost killed her as it is.”
“It won’t happen again. Sam is careful....”
“Sam wasn’t careful! No one was careful.”
Will straightened from where he had been leaning on the fence. “Oh, come on. No one got hurt, and Sam will be more careful from now on. You need to get your story straight. Either your wife is the shotgun-toting avenger you boasted about the other day, or taking a little tumble when she’s startled is going shatter her like porcelain. It’s not as if she’s in a deli....”
Will stopped mid-word, staring at her. To her chagrin, Hassie felt heat flushing across her cheeks. So much for Bret telling his family over a pleasant dinner.
“Oh, but she is, isn’t she?” Will said. “Congratulations on expanding the Union branch of the Sterling family.”
Bret ignored his brother as he so often did and spoke to his father. “I’d better not find so much as a bruise on my wife or I’ll shoot that son of a bitch, and it has nothing to do with her condition. You want the mare gone and the dog gone, fine. We’ll all be gone come morning.”
Mr. Durham cleared his throat. “Perhaps everyone would benefit from some time to reflect and calm down.”
“Yes, of course.” Flustered, Mr. Sterling seized on the excuse to back out of the confrontation.
“You let me know,” Bret snarled, “because banged up as they are, these horses can make it to town in the morning.”
Mr. Sterling and his friend retreated to the house. Will hesitated as if he would say more then followed, leaving Bret and Hassie alone with the horses. Finished doctoring Brownie’s wounds, Bret gave her a pat on the neck and turned her loose.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked Hassie again, his face still set in hard lines.
“My d-e-l-i-c-a-t-e condition would not make me lie. What about you? You ran on your leg.”
“I did, and it hurts like the devil. Willow bark and whiskey tonight.”
“Your father may not want to share whiskey.”
“Then I’ll steal it. I had lots of practice as a boy.”
She smiled, and his face softened. She tried a small kiss on his cheek, and he laughed.
“Do you realize Old Brownie just kicked the stuffing out of a blue-blooded Thoroughbred aristocrat without the sense to recognize a female not in the mood?”
Hassie laughed too. Unlike Brownie, by the time Bret checked her for bruises, she would be in the mood. Bret’s approach to romance had considerably more to recommend it than Caesar’s.
As to the angry words, she didn’t care. Soon she would have her own home and the Sterlings would be a minor irritation she would only have to visit or play hostess to occasionally.
I
N ONE WAY
Hassie wished she hadn’t told Bret about the baby yet, for any chance she had of accompanying him on the search for a place of their own had disappeared with her news. He skipped right over objections to her doing any more traveling on horseback in winter and went straight to forbidding her to even get on a horse.
Hard as she tried, Hassie couldn’t work up a single mutinous feeling over Bret’s protective behavior, and the thought of staying alone among the Sterlings for a week or two while he searched for their new home no longer upset her. It seemed as if the family had finally accepted their decision about the land. Mr. Sterling consulted with Sam Olson daily as the two agonized over which horses to sell and how.
Will, Mary, and their children avoided Hassie as carefully as she avoided them. Caroline continued as the center of laughter and fun in the house, and Bret calmed Hassie’s worries for the girl.
“There’s a practical streak under all that fluff,” he said. “If she says she’s waiting for this clerk of hers to save up enough to give them a start, she’ll wait and hold him to it. If he can’t reach the mark, she’ll find someone who can. Don’t worry about her.”
News of another grandchild on the way pleased both the elder Sterlings and helped smooth over the ragged feelings between Bret and his father. Mrs. Sterling admitted more than that to Hassie.
“I know you saved Breton’s life in Colorado,” she said. “Killing a man must have been terrible for you, and I will never stop being grateful. Losing him would be just—unbearable.”
“You should tell him. He thinks you are so angry with him you would not miss him.”
Mrs. Sterling’s expression froze, then she sighed. “That’s not true. That never was true, and he was as angry as we were. Hearing him laugh again makes me realize how very angry he was. We have you to thank for that too, don’t we?”
Hassie mentally compared the icy-eyed man who had killed Rufus to the one who had made love to her that morning.
“A little,”
she wrote.
“He makes me happy too. He made everything better.”
Her reserved mother-in-law patted Hassie’s hand. “I’m glad he found you.”
The first morning after the New Year that dawned with sunny skies and rising temperatures, Hassie accepted that Bret would be off as soon as he packed, and she was right. He told the family his plans over breakfast.
“That young lawyer in town claims he has contacts and promised to find me a few leads to farms for sale. I figure to ride into town today and see what he has. I can stay overnight there and set out in the morning.”